In this bulletin:

• U.S.: Senior al Qaeda leader captured in Afghanistan
• Insurgent activity spikes in Afghanistan
• Pakistan Link Seen in Afghan Suicide Attacks
• PM asks US to think about exit strategy from Afghanistan
• Afghan president to visit Himachal tomorrow
• EU debates police rebuilding role in Afghanistan
• Kabul ready to boost ties with Tehran
• Nato winning Afghan hearts and minds'
• No Larger Military Role for Germany as EU Debates Afghanistan
• More NATO troops needed in Afghanistan, assembly told
• Afghans support NATO but terrorized by Taliban
• 'Taleban law' passed in Pakistan –BBC
• Afghanistan heroin production soars
• Afghanistan to import 300 MW power from Uzbekistan
• Afghan Operator Connects Millionth Customer
• Human security key to stability: ACBAR

U .S.: Senior al Qaeda leader captured in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A senior al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan who escaped last year from Bagram prison has been captured, U.S. military sources said Monday.

Abu Nasir al-Qahtani was among six people arrested last Monday during a raid by coalition and Afghan forces in Khost province, the sources said.

A coalition military press release issued at the time of al-Qahtani's arrest described him only as a "known al Qaeda terrorist" and said he was taken into custody along with Saudi and Pakistani nationals.

Al-Qahtani was one of four al Qaeda detainees who escaped from the high-security detention facility at the U.S. base in Bagram in July 2005. The men later appeared in an al Qaeda video describing their detention and escape.

Al-Qahtani went into the most detail about the escape, even drawing a map of the Bagram prison. He said that after sneaking off the base the four men eventually made contact with the Taliban.

Another of the four escapees, Omar al-Farouq, was killed in late September in Basra, Iraq, by British troops.

A coalition spokesman in Kabul said Monday that grenades, military equipment, armor-piercing rounds and AK-47 assault rifles were found during last week's raid. A camera containing surveillance video of nearby military installations also was recovered.

Insurgent activity spikes in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 13

KABUL , Afghanistan - Insurgent activity in Afghanistan has risen fourfold this year, and militants now launch more than 600 attacks a month, a rising wave of violence that has resulted in 3,700 deaths in 2006, a bleak new report released Sunday found.

On Monday, a provincal police chief said U.S. and Afghan forces have arrested a senior al-Qaida member in southeastern Afghanistan , a provincial police chief.

The troops detained six people — four Afghans, an Arab and a Pakistani — on Thursday in the city of Khost, said Mohammad Ayub, the provincial police chief. He said the detainees are under the custody of U.S. forces.

Pakistan 's The News daily reported on Monday that one of the detainees was Abu Nasir al-Qahtani, one of four Arab al-Qaida operatives who escaped from the U.S. prison in Bagram in July 2005.

Meanwhile, in the volatile border area near Pakistan , more than 20 Taliban militants — and possibly as many as 60 — were killed during several days of clashes, officials said Sunday.

The new report said insurgents were launching more than 600 attacks a month as of the end of September, up from 300 a month at the end of March this year. The violence has killed more than 3,700 people this year, it said.

Afghanistan saw about 130 insurgent attacks a month last year, said the report by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, a body of Afghan and international officials charged with overseeing the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, a five-year reconstruction and development blueprint signed in February.

The violence "threatens to reverse some of the gains made in the recent past, with development activities being especially hard hit in several areas, resulting in partial or total withdrawal of international agencies in a number of the worst-affected provinces."

The report said that the rising drug trade in Afghanistan is fueling the insurgency in four volatile southern provinces. The slow pace of development is contributing to popular disaffection and ineffective implementation of the drug fight, it said.

Afghanistan 's poppy crop, which is used to make heroin, increased by 59 percent in Afghanistan this past year.

Insurgents have launched a record number of roadside bombs and suicide attacks this year, and there have been clashes all year between insurgents and Afghan and NATO security forces, particularly in the southern and eastern provinces near the border with Pakistan .

The 3,700 deaths the report attributes to insurgent-related violence is comparable to the number of deaths — about 3,500 — tallied by The Associated Press this year based on reports from the U.S. military, NATO and Afghan officials.

In the east, Gen. Murad Ali, the deputy Afghan army commander for Paktika province, said 20 bodies were recovered from fighting in Bermel district in the last several days. In addition, he said, two trucks carrying Taliban fighters were destroyed by airstrikes or artillery fire, and officials estimated 40 fighters were killed in those strikes.

Four NATO soldiers and three Afghan soldiers were injured, he said, though a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force said he was not aware of any serious injuries among NATO troops.

Maj. Luke Knittig said the operations in Bermel, which borders Pakistan , were part of an ongoing Afghan-NATO mission to root out Taliban militants before winter.

"We know we've engaged in successful operations in Bermel with a purpose, and we think those have had a very positive effect against insurgent activity there," Knittig said.

Knittig said Ali's estimate of 60 dead fighters "sounds about right to me," but he did not have an independent estimate of the number killed. "We are not into the numbers game here lately," he said.

Death tolls in remote areas of Afghanistan are almost impossible to verify and often vary widely.

Abdul Baqi Nuristani, the provincial police chief, said only 25 militants have been killed in Bermel the last couple days. He said three Afghan and three NATO soldiers were injured in what he called "a very big battle."

Ali said tribal elders took the bodies of eight Pakistani fighters back over the border to be buried.

Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent Pakistani or other foreign fighters from crossing the border to launch attacks. Pakistan says it does all it can, though border attacks have increased since a September agreement led the Pakistani military to pull out of its lawless tribal region.

Bermel is home to a military base that hosts both Afghan and U.S. soldiers. NATO-led troops aided by military aircraft killed 15 suspected insurgents in the district on Tuesday after troops on patrol came under attack.

Pakistan Link Seen in Afghan Suicide Attacks

By CARLOTTA GALL The New York Times November 13, 2006

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 13 — Afghan and NATO security forces have recently rounded up several men like Hafez Daoud Shah, a 21-year-old unemployed Afghan refugee who says he drove across the border to Afghanistan in September in a taxi with three other would-be suicide bombers.

Every case, Afghan security officials say, is similar to that of Mr. Shah, who repeated his story in a rare jailhouse interview with a journalist in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The trail of organizing, financing and recruiting the bombers who have carried out a rising number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan traces back to Pakistan, they say.

“Every single bomber or I.E.D. in one way or another is linked to Pakistan,” a senior Afghan intelligence official said, referring to improvised explosive devices liked roadside bombs. “Their reasons are to keep Afghanistan destabilized, to make us fail, and to keep us fragmented.” He would speak on the subject only if he was not identified.

A senior United States military official based in Afghanistan agreed for the most part. “The strong belief is that recruiting, training and provision of technical equipment for I.E.D.’s in the main takes place outside Afghanistan,” he said. By I.E.D.’s he meant suicide bombers as well. He, too, did not want his name used because he knew his remarks were likely to offend Pakistani leaders.

The charge is in fact one of the most contentious that Afghan and American officials have leveled at the Pakistani leadership, which frequently denies the infiltration problem and insists that the roots of the Taliban insurgency lie in Afghanistan.

The dispute continues to divide Afghan and Pakistani leaders, even as the Bush administration tries to push them toward greater cooperation in fighting the Taliban, whose ranks have swelled to as many as 10,000 fighters this year.

A year ago, roadside bombs and suicide attacks were rare occurrences in Afghanistan. But they have grown more frequent and more deadly. There have been more than 90 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year. In September and October, nearly 100 people were killed in such attacks.

Afghan security forces say that in the same period they captured 17 suspected bombers, two of them would-be suicide bombers; NATO forces say they caught 10 people planning suicide bomb attacks in recent weeks.

Last week, for the first time, a Pakistani intelligence official acknowledged that suicide bombers were being trained in Bajaur, a small Pathan tribal area along the border. In a briefing given only on condition of anonymity, the official cited the training as one reason for an airstrike this month on a religious school there that killed more than 80 people.

The arrests of Mr. Shah and others like him, Afghan and NATO officials say, show that groups intent on carrying out attacks in Afghanistan continue to operate easily inside Pakistan.

Mr. Shah said he was one of four would-be suicide bombers who arrived in Kabul from Pakistan on Sept. 30. One of them killed 12 people and wounded 40 at the pedestrian entrance to the Interior Ministry the same day.

The attack was the first suicide bomb aimed not at foreign troops but at Afghans, and it terrified Kabul residents. The dead included a woman and her child.

By Mr. Shah’s account, it could have been far worse. Mr. Shah said he and his cohort had planned to blow themselves up in four separate attacks in the capital. That they failed was due partly to luck and partly to vigilance by Afghan and NATO security forces. But their plot represented a clear escalation in the bombers’ ambitions in Afghanistan.

Wearing a black prayer cap and long beard, Mr. Shah recounted his own involvement in the presence of two Afghan intelligence officers at a jail run by the National Directorate of Security. The Afghan intelligence officers offered up Mr. Shah because, unlike others in custody facing similar charges, his investigation was over. He is now awaiting trial.

Mr. Shah showed no signs of fear or discomfort in front of his guards. But after two weeks in detention, he complained of tiredness and headaches from a longstanding but unspecified mental condition, something his father confirmed in a separate interview at the family home in Karachi, the southern Pakistani port city.

At first Mr. Shah, who was educated through the sixth grade, denied that he intended to be a suicide bomber, but said he had gone to Afghanistan only to fight jihad, or holy war. “I was just thinking of fighting jihad against the infidels,” he said. “I was hearing there was fighting in Afghanistan and seeing it in the newspapers.”

But by the end of the hourlong conversation, he admitted that he had intended to blow himself up in Kabul, and said he regretted his actions. He was vague about the target of his suicide mission. “I did not know where I was going to do it,” he said.

After he was arrested, Mr. Shah said, he learned that one member of his group, whom he called Abdullah, succeeded in carrying out a suicide attack outside the Interior Ministry. “When I was arrested, I heard about it and I thought it must be him,” he said.

“They came here to be martyred,” he said of his three companions, all Pakistanis, all around the same age, and all also from Karachi.

Mr. Shah himself is one of the 2.5 million Afghans who live as refugees in Pakistan and who, officials on both sides of the border agree, frequently cycle through the ranks of the Taliban and other militant Islamic groups.

The would-be suicide bombers arrested recently, the Afghan intelligence official said, emerge from two clear strands.

Some are linked to extremist groups that have long been set up and run by Pakistani intelligence as an arm of foreign policy toward rival governments in Afghanistan and India. They are technically illegal and the government now says it has cracked down on them.

Others are allied with Afghan groups like the Taliban and the renegade militia commander, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, also a longtime protégé of Pakistani intelligence, who has now allied himself with the Taliban, Afghan and NATO officials say.

Like Mr. Shah, several other would-be bombers arrested recently have originated in Pakistan or were run by commanders based there, they said.

After a bombing cell of 12 people was picked up in Kabul recently, two of the men continued to receive cellphone calls while in custody, urging them to explode their bombs, the intelligence official said. The calls came from an Afghan commander called Pir Farouq, who lives in the Shamshatoo Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, a frontier town, and is closely allied with Mr. Hekmatyar.

When Afghan intelligence, at NATO’s behest, passed on the cellphone number of Pir Farouq to Pakistani intelligence officers, their informer, a member of the commander’s inner circle, was swiftly killed, his body cut into eight pieces and dumped in the camp. NATO officials described the incident to journalists.

Another group of bombers was captured as they were planning attacks on NATO forces in northern Afghanistan. That cell was also connected to Mr. Hekmatyar, but organized by another of his commanders who lives in Quetta, a Pakistani border town, the intelligence official said.

In Mr. Shah’s case, he and his companions had all studied at the same religious school, or madrasa, at Masjid-e-Noor, a mosque in Mansehra Colony, a working-class district in northeastern Karachi. Mr. Shah said he studied there for four years, earning the title hafiz, given to one who has memorized the Koran.

The madrasa was run until recently by Maulavi Abdul Shakoor Khairpuri, who, Mr. Shah said, was a member of a banned jihadi group, Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen. Mr. Shah said it was the maulavi who sent them on the suicide mission.

The maulavi had given him a note addressed to a man called only Umar, who was waiting for them when they arrived in Kabul. Bearded, aged 28 or 29, Umar was a Taliban member from Kandahar, Mr. Shah said.

The note directed Umar to give the group explosives and stated that the equivalent of about $1,400 would be given to the families of each bomber after they finished their mission, Mr. Shah said.

Umar handed them a white rice bag. Inside were four khaki vests, with three pockets sewn on each side of the chest where the explosives were placed. “It has wires leading to a remote control and when you press the button it explodes,” Mr. Shah said.

“The vests were heavy,” he added. “There were a lot of explosives.” Mr. Shah then started looking for a taxi. Someone, apparently an intelligence agent, offered to show him but led him instead to the intelligence office, where he was arrested. The other bombers slipped away with their vests. So did Umar.

The Afghan intelligence official confirmed much of Mr. Shah’s story. So did Mr. Shah’s father, Ahmed Shah, interviewed last month at his home in a run-down tenement on the east side of Karachi, though he said he did not know where his son had gone after leaving home three weeks ago. The gaps and discrepancies in the father’s and son’s accounts seemed to indicate that neither was telling the full story.

When told why his son was in jail in Kabul, the father grew angry, but showed no surprise. “How can one feel when someone leaves the house without caring for his children — he has two small children,” he said, a boy of 4 and a girl of 2.

“We got tired of talking to him; you could not talk to him,” the father said. “Such a disobedient child, who does not care about anyone, who does not look after his parents, should go to hell.”

Mr. Shah’s teacher at the local mosque also contradicted Mr. Shah’s account.

Maulavi Khairpuri, interviewed at his home next to the Noor mosque, denied being a member of the banned Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, as Mr. Shah had said. But he did acknowledge being the local secretary of a pro-Taliban party, Jamiat-ul-Ulama-i-Islam.

The maulavi said he had no idea that Mr. Shah had gone to Afghanistan. He denied sending Mr. Shah on the suicide mission. “He was not brave enough to do that,” he said dismissively.

PM asks US to think about exit strategy from Afghanistan

Pakistani Newspaper (thepakistaninewspaper.com)

WASHINGTON, Nov 13: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Monday politely asked the United States to think about an exit strategy from Afghanistan.

In an interview with the Washington Times, Aziz gave an implicit reminder that the US must leave Afghanistan eventually, in consultation with the Afghans, their neighbours and myriad stakeholders.

"History is full of examples where we didn't focus too much on exit strategy," Aziz said. "A good exit strategy is one which leaves that country, that area, peaceful, economically and politically empowered. ... "We are the most important stakeholder, and we are there for life. We cannot take off; countries cannot change their neighbours."

The Times quoted the PM saying Pakistan, a key ally in the war on terror, welcomes an expected reappraisal of US policy in Iran and Afghanistan, and thinks military action alone is "not the answer" to the threat posed by extremists in the two countries."

Shaukat Aziz told the newspaper that he would like to see a more nuance approach to battling extremism, which includes massive investment and economic assistance to the two countries in order to build a sense of well-being for the poor and disenfranchised.

In New York for meetings at the United Nations, Aziz also said the world needs to focus more seriously on Afghanistan's narcotics trade, which is becoming an increasingly important source of terrorist financing. By some estimates, the trade accounts for half of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

An American commission headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton is expected to recommend strategies for the Iraq war before year's end, a development that Mr. Aziz welcomed.

"We believe that conflicts like Iraq, Afghanistan and so on need to be carefully reviewed because military action is not the answer or the solution to such a crisis," he said. "We must work on winning the hearts and minds of the people. We have to involve the people, to give them the sense that the world cares and their future tomorrow will be better than yesterday."

The United States has spent about $38 billion on infrastructure and development projects in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, but Aziz said more must be done to address "root causes," namely poverty and hopelessness, and to make extremist ideologies less attractive.

The prime minister gave an implicit reminder that the United States must leave Afghanistan eventually, in consultation with the Afghans, their neighbors and myriad stakeholders.

"History is full of examples where we didn't focus too much on exit strategy," Aziz said. "A good exit strategy is one which leaves that country, that area, peaceful, economically and politically empowered. ... "We are the most important stakeholder, and we are there for life. We cannot take off; countries cannot change their neighbours." Aziz declined to comment on the US midterm elections last week or the resignation Wednesday of Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

He downplayed Washington's continued demands that Pakistan do more to prevent al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from crossing in and out of Pakistan, arguing that it is in Pakistan's national interest to fight narcotics, extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan.

With parliamentary elections due late next year, the Pakistan government faces a delicate balancing act, seeking to address US demands without alienating a Pakistani public that could deliver its votes to a political coalition that is thought to be aligned with the Taliban.

"In our neighbourhood, a lot of events are taking place that can impact us," said Aziz, whose military sustained more than 40 deaths in a suicide bombing last week.

"We are not doing this to please anybody; we are doing this in our own national interest. ... Terrorism knows no borders." The prime minister also defended his country's agreement to allow tribal leaders to take charge of one portion of the 1,700-mile border with Afghanistan, saying that the area is difficult to police.

Asked whether similar deals may be struck in other tribal, agencies, he said: "If we can restrict activity that is prejudicial to our security, it will be done. At the right time and right place we will do more."

Aziz is a member of an elite panel advising the United Nations on how to consolidate and better coordinate aid activities in the field. His staff said he had no official contacts with Washington during the visit, focusing instead on the local Pakistani community and economic business.

Afghan president to visit Himachal tomorrow

New Delhi, Nov 14, IRNA - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will arrive here on a two-day visit on Wednesday, official sources said on Tuesday.

An alumnus of Himachal Pradesh University, Karzai will visit his alma mater after his arrival here and interact with faculty members and students.

This will be his second visit to Shimla after becoming president of Afghanistan. He was conferred an honorary doctorate degree by the university during his visit in April 2003.

"This is a private visit of the Afghan president and no other engagement has been fixed," an official source said.

Karzai will arrive here by helicopter and stay at the Cecil Hotel.

Karzai had met old friends and visited shops and eateries that he frequented as a student during his last visit. He would leave the state on November 17, the sources said.

EU debates police rebuilding role in Afghanistan

by Lorne Cook Mon Nov 13 - BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union expressed willingness to do more to help Afghanistan, struggling to rebuild in the grip of a tenacious insurgency, notably to bolster the country's police force.

Amid calls from nations combatting the Taliban-led rebels in the volatile south, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana proposed sending a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan to see what "added value" the bloc could bring.

"The EU stands ready to do even more to contribute to the collective effort and I think that a (European) police operation could be of great value," he told EU foreign and defence ministers, meeting in Brussels.

"If we want to explore this possibility further, we could send a fact-finding mission to study the conditions under which the operation could take place in the area of police and rule of law," he said.

The mission was expected to be discussed by EU experts on Tuesday. Germany has come under increasing pressure to accelerate the rebuilding of Afghanistan's police force -- plagued by corruption as well as poorly trained and equipped -- but Berlin claims it has nothing to reproach itself about.

A team of around 40 German experts has been working on the problem. Based on a proposal from the Netherlands, which has troops deployed in the southern province of Uruzgan, the EU ministers debated how they could supplement the work already being done by their German partners.

Britain said there was plenty the EU could do. "There is scope for the EU to reinforce and reinvigorate civilian work on the rule of law in Afghanistan," British Defence Minister Des Browne told his EU counterparts.

"I want to see it make more of a contribution in this area by working more closely with international partners and complement efforts already in place," he said.

He also urged the EU to cooperate more closely with NATO and the United Nations. His Spanish counterpart, Antonio Alonso, said: "Spain supports the idea if it is about training police and not an exercise in doing the work of the police."

He said it could include training new recruits in-country but also in some of Europe's police academies.

"On the police, we need to see things more clearly. To avoid launching something that could lack cohesion, we need to send a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan," tempered French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.

The EU's discussions on the issue follow a call from NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for the bloc to do more to help reconstruction.

NATO's efforts to stabilise the country and extend the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government outside of the capital Kabul risk being undermined by the Taliban-led insurgency.

If stability does not return and the economy does not begin growing again, Afghans could turn back to the Taliban, which was ousted from power by a US-led coalition in late 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"NATO's mission is not to 'resolve' the problems of Afghanistan because there are no military solutions. The real problem is that Afghanistan is not sufficiently on the EU's radar screen," de Hoop Scheffer said last week.

But EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner swept aside the criticism, saying that "what we've been doing is really enormous."

She told reporters that the European Commission had pledged one billion euros (1.3 billion dollars) to Afghanistan over five years from 2002, and that "we will go on with substantial aid".

"One problem is there are weak local governments and lots of corruption," she noted.

Kabul ready to boost ties with Tehran

Kabul, Nov 13, IRNA - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta here on Sunday evening underlined the need to continue Tehran-Kabul cooperation in all areas.

During a meeting with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia-Pacific Affairs Mehdi Safari, Iran's participation in the ongoing reconstruction process in Afghanistan was discussed by the two sides.

Safari, who arrived in Kabul Sunday afternoon, also met with Afghan Finance Minister Anwar Ul-Haq Ahady. The two officials reviewed issues pertaining to the reconstruction process and plans to hold a session of the Tehran-Kabul Joint Economic Commission in the near future.

In related developments, the Iranian envoy met and conferred with Afghan President Hamed Karzai on Monday.

Latest developments in bilateral relations, the ongoing reconstruction process in Afghanistan and mutual security concerns were discussed in the meeting.

President Karzai in the meeting also highlighted the key role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran in defending regional peace and tranquility.

'Nato winning Afghan hearts and minds'

Nov 13 2006 (UKpress) - The top commander of the 30,000-strong Nato force in Afghanistan has said he believes troops are winning over hearts and minds.

Lieutenant General David Richards' comments come as Nato marks five years of fighting in the country.

To date, 503 Nato soldiers have died - including 41 British troops - but military leaders say they are making progress despite a warning from the Afghan government of growing suicide attacks.

However, British forces continue to battle against a resurgent Taliban in the lawless Helmand province.

Recently, a Brussels-based think-tank said defeat of the Taliban would require Afghan President Hamid Karzai to lead a new anti-corruption campaign that can stop disillusioned Afghans from turning to extremism.

The International Crisis Group said Nato must commit more troops to combat zones in the south and east and criticised Germany, Spain, France, Turkey and Italy for not being willing to send troops into embattled areas.

It also said the international community needs to step up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to stop Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from crossing the border into Afghanistan.

No Larger Military Role for Germany as EU Debates Afghanistan

Top German politicians rebuffed increased pressure from NATO Monday to send troops to hot spots in southern Afghanistan, but they did agree to consider increasing civilian reconstruction and police training efforts.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer encouraged greater mobility among the European troops stationed in Afghanistan, including those from the German Bundeswehr, in a statement published in the Monday edition of Berliner Zeitung.

"We need to better configure our forces in Afghanistan," he wrote, reiterating past appeals to the German government. "That also means removing the limitations individual nations have placed on their troops."

Scheffer called lifting deployment restrictions an "important and necessary sign of solidarity among the allies." Last week he said there was no military solution to the country's lack of stability, adding that "Afghanistan is not sufficiently on the EU's radar screen."

For her part, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday in Berlin that no changes needed to be made to Germany's mandate in Afghanistan.

"Germany has a strong presence in Afghanistan. We have taken responsibility for the north," Merkel said. "We have a mandate that allows us in emergencies to help in the south, but we believe this mandate should not be altered."

In late September the German government extended the mandate for its troops stationed in Afghanistan -- a mandate that would allow for deployment to the south if need be and German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung said he also did not anticipate any changes in the Bundeswehr's immediate role.

"NATO has prescribed a clear division of labor. This division will remain as it is," he said. "If emergency help becomes necessary, we won't leave our friends stranded."

Germany currently has 2,800 troops stationed in Afghanistan, mainly in the north, as part of the NATO-run peace-keeping mission ISAF.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday during a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers in Brussels that the stabilization work in the northern part of the country shouldn't be jeopardized by dispatching personnel and soldiers to send to the south.

Possible EU police training mission – However, Steinmeier did make an appeal for greater involvement in reconstruction, as did de Hoop Scheffer, and for more EU involvement in training the new Afghan police force.

Germany has come under increasing pressure to accelerate the rebuilding of Afghanistan's police force, but Berlin said it has nothing to reproach itself about when it comes to how the country has led the training mission since 2002.

"I strongly believe that we should strengthen our efforts to build up the police force, and that we should ask ourselves if our contribution to reforming the political institutions, especially the rule of law, is sufficient," Steinmeier said.

There was also talk in Brussels of an EU fact-finding mission in Afghanistan to gather concrete information on the current situation and assess the impact an EU police training mission could make.

"The EU stands ready to do even more to contribute to the collective effort and I think that a (European) police operation could be of great value," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

Mixed opinions among EU representatives - British and Dutch officials were supportive of greater civilian involvement, while the French expressed caution.

"There is scope for the EU to reinforce and reinvigorate civilian work on the rule of law in Afghanistan," British Defense Secretary Des Browne said, adding that the EU should cooperate more with NATO and the United Nations. "I want to see it make more of a contribution in this area."

French Defense Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie said she agreed added attention needed to be paid to the region's security but was unwilling to commit French forces.

"On the police, we need to see things more clearly," she said. "To avoid launching something that could lack cohesion, we need to send a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan."

More NATO troops needed in Afghanistan, assembly told

QUEBEC (CP) - NATO member countries need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the troubled region, said parliamentarians who are meeting in Quebec City.

The 18,000-soldier contingent needs to be increased by 15 to 20 per cent, said Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, vice-president of NATO's parliamentary assembly. The reinforcements can't come from Canada, said the Conservative senator.

With more than 2,000 soldiers currently stationed in Afghanistan, Canada has already done its part, he said.

Nolin said the ball is now in the court of the 25 other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's not the first time the point has been pressed to the organization but there have been few takers.

The Afghanistan situation and the NATO mission is at the heart of the discussions by about 300 members of the NATO parliamentary assembly which is meeting in Quebec City in its 52nd session until Friday.

An independent body from NATO, the assembly has as its mandate to express its views and reflect public opinion on issues facing the alliance.

In the case of Afghanistan, the assembly is trying "to explain the reasons for which we ask our soldiers to risk their lives in foreign countries," said Nolin.

While the federal government has stressed the importance of the mission, a large number of Canadians have urged the troops be withdrawn.

Leon Benoit, president of the Canadian NATO parliamentary assembly, said Canadians must realize "if we do not go to Afghanistan, Afghanistan will come to us," he said.

Stabilizing the country is key to maintaining security in that part of the world, he noted. "Ultimately, we are in Afghanistan for the safety of Canadians," Benoit said. "We must succeed."

NATO's presence in Afghanistan is a test of its capacity to intervene in combat zones and it has managed to improve the lot of Afghanistan's population, Nolin insisted.

"Schools are being built, the roads, the wells," he said. "We do not need to focus only on the fact that there are combat zones."

Afghans support NATO but terrorized by Taliban

The Canadian PressKABUL (Nov 13, 2006)

A former freedom fighter says that the people of Afghanistan will continue to be terrorized by the Taliban until they learn to stand together against the terrorist group.

And support for Canadian and NATO troops in the country is higher than critics would suggest, argued Neamat Arghandabi, leader of the National Islamic Society of Afghan Youth.

"The only thing is they're silent ... they're the quiet majority because if they express their support then they're dead people," Arghandabi remarked.

"Many people appreciate (Canada's) presence in Kandahar but they can't say so publicly because they're afraid. This is what terrorism is all about ... to scare you off because they can come in the night and kill you because you told the media you like the Canadian presence here."

Arghandabi, 37, and living in London, was just 16 when he joined the mujahedeen -- or holy warriors -- in the battle against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. After the Soviet retreat, many of the larger mujahedeen groups began to fight one another. After several years of fighting, a village mullah organized religious students into an armed movement which became known as the Taliban.

Arghandabi's group is now working with the young men of Afghanistan who are being actively recruited by the Taliban, which is always looking for new members.

"Five years ago, we encouraged the youth to study in computers and then we opened a computer and English centre for them," Arghandabi added. "But now we are more engaged in how to keep people in the schools from getting recruited by the Taliban as suicide bombers."

Although the differences between the mujahideen and the Taliban are many, the one thing that has remained the same is the recruiting methods.

"All they're saying is there is a jihad (holy war) and there are infidels in the country. They're taking advantage of your background. They check that you're from a poor background. You don't have a job ... you don't have money," Arghandabi explained.

"There is no school for you to study, so you're hanging around like any other teenager looking for trouble. They say you will go to paradise ... there is nothing in this life and when they get you into the trap, they brainwash you so you don't see anything but how to die quickly and go to paradise."

Arghandabi said another problem is that Afghanistan's youth know little about the Taliban or how harsh living under a Taliban regime can be. He is returning to his native Kandahar this week and for the next several months will continue speaking out against the Taliban -- something he realizes can be dangerous.

"This is very, very risky, my friend. The Taliban are very ruthless people and they can come and kill you and they don't care how many die."

NATO forces have had their hands full with the resurgence of the Taliban, acknowledged an official with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"We recognized there are a good percentage of people with the Taliban and the wider insurgencies that are misguided, misled and intimidated," said U.S. Major Luke Knittig.

"They are stronger this year but we're stronger this year too, and we realize we have to concentrate our efforts on certain areas where people can see a real effort in their lives, and that is what will make the Taliban irrelevant," he said.

Arghandabi said despite the risks, it is time for the Afghan people to take a stand against the Taliban -- and that goes for elected officials in the government of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.

"We say why don't these people in the Parliament raise their voice against (Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad) Omar. "They don't because they are scared of him. "The Taliban don't care if 30 or 40 Afghans are killed as long as a single Canadian soldier dies."

'Taleban law' passed in Pakistan –BBC

Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has passed a bill setting up a Taleban-style department under a cleric to enforce Islamic morality.

It gives the new department the power to use the police and media for the promotion of Islamic values. The NWFP is governed by an alliance of religious parties, the MMA, that is sympathetic to the Taleban.

It has already introduced measures such as the banning of music on public transport. The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hassan in Karachi says the wording of the bill has been deliberately left vague and therefore open to different interpretations.

Critics say this leaves it open to misuse by politicians in the future. Opposition MPs wore black armbands and staged a walkout from the assembly, saying their proposed changes to the law had been ignored.

The move comes only days before the federal assembly is due to debate moves to water down Islamic laws on divorce that have been denounced by women's groups. The Hisba (Accountability) bill was passed in the NWFP assembly by a majority of 66 to 30.

Last year, the province's governor refused to sign a similar bill into effect, and the Supreme Court declared aspects of the proposed law unconstitutional.

Under the constitution, the provincial governor is obliged to agree to the latest version, as he is only allowed to veto a bill once.

He must give his assent within 30 days of the bill being presented to him. Some of the provisions in the 2005 bill that the Supreme Court criticised have been dropped.

The department will not now have its own police force. It will, however, be able to requisition police "to promote virtue and prevent vice".

In other concessions, the power to cap spending on weddings or to enforce an Islamic dress code in public has been removed.

The legislation also allows the department to tackle issues like honour killings of women, child labour and ensuring the rights of minority religious groups.

"We had promised an Islamic system to the nation and approval of the Hisba bill is an important step in that direction," NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Correspondents say that it remains to be seen which areas of its remit the department will choose to focus on. Last year, President Pervez Musharraf denounced the original bill as a breach of fundamental human rights.

Afghanistan heroin production soars

ITV (UK) / November 14, 2006 - Heroin production has rocketed in Afghanistan over the past five years despite the presence of Nato troops. Afghanistan supplies almost 90 per cent of the world's heroin and a record opium harvest, the raw material for the drug, is expected this year.

When British troops first went into the country, Prime Minister Tony Blair said one of the great benefits of overthrowing the Taliban regime would be to seriously disrupt Afghanistan's drugs industry.

However, since April alone, more than 13.5 tonnes of narcotics have been confiscated by police.

Meanwhile, the intensity of the Taliban's fightback this year has surprised Nato and US-led troops in the bloodiest year since the group was ousted in 2001. More than 3,100 people, a third of them civilians, have died so far this year.

Afghanistan to import 300 MW power from Uzbekistan

Xinhua / November 14, 2006 - The war-ravaged and energy-thirsty Afghanistan has inked agreement with Uzbekistan to import 300 MW electricity from its central Asian neighbor, Presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi said in Kabul Tuesday.

"Afghan Minister for Water and Power Mohammad Ismael Khan signed the accord during his recent visit to Uzbekistan," Rahimi told newsmen at a press briefing. Work on the installation of the transmission lines and poles has already begun from the border town of Hiratan, he said.

The project would be completed within the next 18 months and thus, Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, would have sufficient power. Similar agreement has already been inked with Tajikistan.

Less than 10 percent of Afghans have access to electricity while in the capital city Kabul, around 70 percent of the residents enjoy electricity, according to the Minister for Water and Power.

Khan also said a few days ago that Kabul, with a population of over 4 million, needs more than 1,000 MW power. To overcome the problem, Afghanistan has to import electricity from neighboring countries besides building more power plants in the country.

Afghan Operator Connects Millionth Customer

Cellular-Newsl 11/13/2006 - The Telecom Development Company Afghanistan, better known by its brand name Roshan has announced that on the 30th October, the company reached the one million subscribers mark on its cellular network. This significant milestone has been reached in just over three years of operations.

"We are very excited and proud about reaching the million subscribers milestone, as this is evidence of the preference the Afghan people have for Roshan," stated Karim Khoja, Chief Executive Officer of Roshan. He further added that the strong support for Roshan was also a reflection of the public confidence in Roshan's reliability and its' commitment to quality of service, customer satisfaction and constant innovation.

The million customers milestone comes at a time when Roshan has enjoyed the best three months period of its operations, in spite of increased competition in the market place. This lends further support to the Roshan CEO's viewpoint that the Afghan people have great confidence in the Company and prefer to go for a Roshan connection

"Roshan's story is similar to the Afghan people's own story; a story of faith, courage and determination to succeed against all odds," said Altaf Ladak, Chief Marketing Officer of Roshan. "The success of Roshan is a success for the reconstruction activities in the country and Roshan has proved to be the catalyst."

Roshan has a countrywide network that covers 155 cities and towns, and directly employs some 806 people while providing indirect employment to hundreds of others. Roshan has invested over US$220 million in Afghanistan and is the country's single largest tax payer contributing approximately 6% of the Afghan Government's overall revenue.

Human security key to stability: ACBAR

KABUL, Nov 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella organisation of around 80 aid agencies, has expressed concern over the spiraling violence, ' insufficient peace and reconstruction strategies' and violation of human rights in Afghanistan.

The body conveyed its concern during a meeting with members of visiting UN Security Council delegation to investigate the situation in Afghanistan.

The delegation observed that the international community had mostly relied on military and related solutions during the previous five years. The members suggested that investments in human security should now trump the global war on terror to maintain peace and security.

The delegation advised the UN Security Council that the international community's assumption that Afghanistan can be made peaceful through a combination of military assistance, donor-driven aid, and Western-style democracy, had failed to attend to the history, society and culture of Afghanistan, a country which has witnessed failed foreign intervention time and again.

There is an urgent need at this time to rethink current strategies in the interests of preventing the death of even more Afghans, avoiding large-scale destruction of infrastructure and livelihoods, and increasing chances that what goes on inside and around Afghanistan's borders does not destabilise regional and global peace efforts.

The aid agencies asked the UN Security Council to play a lead role in pushing a human security agenda in Afghanistan. "It is time to review what we feel is a flawed strategy in Afghanistan. Unless the root causes of conflict are better addressed, and unless the Afghan people themselves are encouraged to participate in their own futures, aid will continue to be compromised and durable solutions will remain illusive."

Kirsten Zaat, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Afghanistan and one of three lead advocates representing aid agencies at the meeting, said they welcome the UN dialoguing directly with the agencies at the highest levels and look forward to witnessing a real change for the better.

"Insecurity, despair, and under-employment have led to perceptions that the government and the international community are not doing enough, the corollary is increased sympathy for opposition forces," said a statement issued by the NRC.

The members expressed the hope that the UNSC would be informed of their concerns to change the strategy from war on terror to promotion of human security in the country.

During the meeting, the UN delegation was informed that many aid agencies were likely to scale down their work due to insecurity. If this situation persists, communities living in rural and remote areas would continue to suffer, said the statement.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]